


The weather outside is frightful.

by andrea_deer



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adrenaline Junkie, Anthea is more important than you think, Canon Genderbending, Fem!John - Freeform, Female Characters, Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Gen, Jane is a badass, Jane kicks ass, Mycroft is a manipulative bastard, Post Reichenbach, Violence, christmas is all around, fight, mystrade if you squint really hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 20:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrea_deer/pseuds/andrea_deer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft wants to tell Jane good news himself, but they turn out premature and he sends Anthea instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The weather outside is frightful.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Disassembly_Rsn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disassembly_Rsn/gifts).



> I've planned this as a gen, friend-fic, but if anyone would like to see some suggested couples or pre-relationship vibes here - feel free.  
> Written for sherlockmas @ lj as a gift for disassembly_rsn.  
> Amazing and quick beta work done by thesmallhobbit. (Thank you!)

The cut right above Jane's left eyebrow was still viciously red, swollen and obviously fresh, but cleaned of the blood and kept closed with two butterfly stitches. The cold reddened Jane's cheeks, making them look more natural, even if the left one was already slightly swollen and darker than the other one. Jane kept on wincing as her grin tagged the aggravated skin, but it seemed like she couldn't help but smile and Anthea replied in kind.

The blizzard outside was getting steadily worse. Due to the quickly falling darkness and heavy snow barely anything was now visible through the coffee-shop's window. Strong wind didn't let the snow flutter to the earth slowly, in calm, graceful arches, but whipped it into the walls of buildings and unfortunate people stuck outside. The warmth of the shop seeped into Jane and she sighed in relief as she made her way to the table. Anthea, until now limited to the images from the CCTV cameras, could finally see Jane's injuries properly.

"Are you all right?" asked Jane glancing up from her cup.

She was still in her jacket, holding her coffee in her gloved hands, seeking the heat for a moment before finally undressing. She seemed at ease, as if there was nothing special about how half of her face was still dark red and swollen or how she winced, while raising her arms to unknot her scarf.

Anthea's smile was small and polite. The safe one she used at work. Easy to bring up at all times, trained after years of practice in diplomacy.

"Perfectly fine, thank you. Are you?"

"What?" asked Jane sounding surprised. "Oh yes, this is nothing, really. He only got one good hit, it looks far worse than it is."

Anthea took a sip of her hot chocolate to avoid calling her companion on the blatant lie. Perhaps the image from the cameras wasn’t perfect, dusk and snow making it hard to pick out the details, but the fight that occurred was easy enough to follow. The man who attacked Jane was taller than her and built like a fighter. Obviously relying on his strength and looks rather than skills. Brute force with close to no training. Barely a challenge for an ex-soldier eager for a fight, but still not someone to be dismissed so easily. 

Jane had been hit with a strong blow to the side, cracking two ribs and slamming her head first into the brick wall. It was brutal and quick. Some thugs hesitate before hitting a woman, especially the amateur ones. It's a good thing, really. It gives women like Anthea or Jane an opportunity to win a fight before it even starts for good. Before their opponent even gets a hit in.

The man who attacked Jane, Tyler Raysen as Anthea knew by now thanks to the updates from her team, was an amateur as well. Not trained or prepared for an opponent who was quite used to fighting back strongly and successfully. He was however also not the brightest of the criminals in London and well used to not hesitating before fulfilling his orders. Hitting first and not asking questions at all.

Jane must have noticed something that gave Anthea away and she sighed.

"You saw it all, didn’t you?" she asked and Anthea smiled silently, not trying to deny it.

It was obvious anyway. Jane was by now well aware of the security net Mr. Holmes weaved around her, even if she perhaps still hadn't realized Anthea was personally responsible for it all as his head of security. And it wasn’t a far jump to assume that if Mr. Holmes' co-workers appeared after everything to clean up the mess and make sure Jane was all right, Anthea had to view the tapes of the whole incident afterwards as well. 

Anthea hadn't corrected the slight misunderstanding that it was. She had seen everything as it happened: Jane was walking to the coffee-shop, where she had agreed to meet Mr. Holmes. It was a first meeting in over a year. Not an invasion in her flat or a polite kidnapping as she called those, but an actual meeting set and agreed on ahead by both sides. It had to be on Jane's rules, because that was the only way she would have it. No cars, no spies, no kidnapping, no weird aristocratic silent clubs or creepy abandoned buildings. A nice coffee-shop, which Jane would reach without assistance and Mr. Holmes would pay for her ridiculously overpriced, yet delicious, mocha with cinnamon cream coffee.

She left her cane at the flat. She had to know it was rather pointless considering Mr. Holmes’ need and ability to know everything about everyone. Even if he hadn't known already from security reports on Jane that she was back to using her cane more often than not, he'd deduce it from her stance, movements, the way she held her right hand and dozens of other small details within seconds. 

Anthea always came up with theories why her observed target acted in a particular way, it helped her understand them and predict their next move. She liked to think she was understanding Jane better and came up with two possible reasons, which could well co-exist in Jane's more or less subconscious decision to leave her crutch. Part of it was not even about meeting Mr. Holmes, but about all the people she'd have to walk past on her way. They didn't know Jane and didn't care about her cane, but she had got better once and hated showing the world that it hadn't stuck. 

Or perhaps she was simply counting on one of the main differences between Mr. Holmes and his younger brother. He'd immediately understand Jane didn’t want him to mention the cane and there was a hope it would stop him from doing so.

Unhappy, crippled Jane acted differently from the doctor who followed Sherlock Holmes around London in many ways. Most of them tiny, small, easily overlooked. Especially for people who weren't assigned to watch Jane carefully.

She left her flat early, deciding to walk and giving herself some extra time to be sure she wouldn’t be late, even with her leg acting up. By now Anthea expected it, knew it was typical. Healthy Jane wouldn't care much if Mr. Holmes had to wait for her for few minutes. Wounded Jane would never give anyone an excuse to point it out, to feel sorry for her, because she was so clearly not fine. In Jane's book, she never arrived anywhere late, because she was limping. After all, she knew she was limping, she could plan accordingly and leave earlier. And she always did.

Anthea wondered how it'd be to get to know Jane at her best, because she seemed like a completely different person sometimes. Or perhaps it was just because now Anthea had got to know her far better. With the security tighter than ever, and the safety of Dr Jane Watson a priority, Anthea felt as if she knew Jane like a really good friend. Even if it was a rather one-sided friendship.

Jane walked briskly, as if trying to forget about the phantom pain shooting through her thigh. It was starting to snow and the short, winter day was already darkening into night. The picture from the cameras was worse than ever as the night vision hadn't yet turned on. Still, Anthea would have to be far worse at her job if she hadn't noticed the man waiting in the alley a few streets ahead of Jane. He pretended to be drunk, murmuring to himself and hunching his arms, trying to look smaller, more common. Not connected in any way with the yellow graffiti _"Moriarty was real"_ on the wall behind him or the woman about to walk by. 

Anthea was exceptional at her job and she knew about it all. Jane's planned path, the sign on the wall, tiny dots of yellow spray paint on Jane's oatmeal jumper and how she smiled mischievously and blushed bright red for few weeks whenever she was walking past this wall. Proud and embarrassed at the same time.

Over a year after that she barely looked at the sign anymore, but still she walked past it whenever she could and a man waiting for her there was more than a bit suspicious.

SECURITY LEAK, GRADE TWO.

Anthea texted Mr. Holmes immediately, not because if the need arose she wouldn't be able to take care of the situation on her own. She was confident Jane wouldn't even need her help. But the fact that a thug not even high on the criminal food chain suddenly managed to get so close was a worrying one.

SHORT AND LIMITED. DON'T INTERVENE. MH.

Anthea prided herself that she didn't need long conversations with her employer, she wasn't hired to discuss things with him, but to follow his orders. And yet that particular text was far too brief in that situation, after almost a year of tight security.

The message could have been brief due to several reasons, but Anthea also recognized in it the typical style of Neal, Mr. Holmes' current personal assistant. She didn't have time to communicate via his person and she called Mr. Holmes directly instead. He answered after a few rings and she didn't waste any time on pleasantries or explaining the situation he had to be aware of already.

"Sir, I'd like to know what has changed. Do you still plan on meeting Dr Watson?"

She liked to believe she was his most trusted employee, but that could never be confirmed. She had worked with him longer than the others and for most of that time she was responsible for either his own security or the security of people close to him. That gave her a right to question him on occasion, even if she’d never overused it. Even now, as she wanted to intervene and get rid of the man waiting for Jane, she stood still, not breaking the order she had been given.

Mr. Holmes was silent for a beat, a small sigh of regret leaving him.

"Our news was a bit premature, I'm afraid. I can't deliver it to Dr Watson yet."

Anthea licked her lips in sharp irritation, tasting her lip-gloss and swallowing a curse. 

"We loosened the security slightly for a brief window of time, we need something to distract Dr Watson with and give you a reason to meet her. Please apologize on my behalf for cancelling the meeting and the leak in security."

"Yes, sir."

The man pushed Jane hard and as she recoiled, shocked and unprepared, he hit her hard in the side.

"She'd be amenable," he said and it sounded like an apology.

Jane dodged the next hit and got in one of her own. The attacker stumbled, taken aback by her abilities and willingness to plant a painful blow.

"Yes, sir," Anthea agreed once more. 

She could hear the voices in the background of their conversations and realized how the information turning false, premature, changed so much more than just a meeting with Jane. There must've been chaos that Mr. Holmes had to now once again organize. On top of his every day responsibilities. She hoped Neal would be there to remind him of sleep every few days or so. The assistant was young and rather new to the job, but he adapted quickly and perhaps it'd be enough by now.

"I will make sure everything is taken care of here, sir," she assured.

She doubted Mr. Holmes' smile was visible, but she could hear it.

"Thank you, Anthea," he replied as usual using the name she associated with the person she was taking care of right now.

He quickly learned the system behind the name changes and adapted to it easily, never even trying to force her to use her given name, even though he knew very well what it was. Watching over Jane, she was Anthea. Delia interviewed Detective Inspector Lestrade. Alice took care of the henchman hiding in Budapest. Holed up in the office on rare quiet times between separate missions, when she was still needed by Mr. Holmes, she was Virginia and she never knew why. He had picked that one and it fitted well enough.

She watched on her laptop the stream from the cameras, observing how Jane fought. Mildly surprised that it didn't took much longer than her conversation. The security guards assigned to Jane appeared only after she was pretty much done, taking over the struggling attacker. Jane mocked them with a smile, asking what took them so long. 

On a good day she always mocked them. And flirted. Stephen actually asked to be reassigned and asked her out, but it was far too early for this to go anywhere and he was back on watching her duty. Both he and Jane had had far too many awkward dates in their lives to let this one be a problem. 

He patched her up in the back of a big, black SUV. It was hard to tell with the quality of picture Anthea was getting, but it seemed as if they were joking with each other. Bantering easily as he cleaned the blood and put the butterfly stitches on her cut.

He even convinced Jane to let them drop her by the coffee-shop, probably not because of her injuries, but simply the fact that the weather was getting unbearable. She got out of the car lightly, her walk much easier, grin teasing her red, cold cheeks. Anthea turned off her laptop as Jane walked into the shop and hid it in her bag. Their drinks were already waiting, brought less than a minute ago and Jane only shook her head at it. Not even bothering with a comment about big brother knowing too much.

"Is Mycroft meeting us here?" she asked finally as the conversation died down, when Anthea failed to continue the subject of the attack.

Jane took off her black jacket and red scarf with a few darker stains made from fresh blood and Anthea smiled apologetically.

"No, I'm sorry, he won't be able to join us. He asked me to apologize on his behalf."

"Oh?" Jane raised her eyebrows and busied herself with stirring her coffee energetically. It hid the slight tremble ever present these days in her hand very well. "I thought he had something to tell me?"

Anthea pursed her lips.

"Yes, however it became irrelevant, I'm afraid."

Jane snorted.

"So it was about the security leak then? I guess the charming wanker who attacked me broke the news for you?"

Jane was still smiling and Anthea was tempted to tell her the whole truth right now. How they’d thought the end of Moriarty's organization was definite and wouldn't take much longer. How they were sure Sherlock would be back home in time for Christmas. But the temptation was weak and easy to overcome.

She had grown to like Jane. Perhaps their relationship was strange, but Anthea had got to know Jane well and she liked what she had discovered. The fierce loyalty, the non-judgmental way of viewing people, the strength and power barely coiled underneath the warm and calm demeanor and soft jumpers. The amazing spirit that was beaten down to the ground far too many times and yet had never truly broken down. Anthea really didn't want Jane to suffer any more, but even less she wanted to put her in danger. Her and the whole operation she would be revealing. It was not the time for such sentiments. It was Anthea's job to keep Jane safe and she planned to be as good at her job as usual.

Still, she liked Jane and her smile was rare these days. Not to mention neither one of them wanted to leave the warm safety of the coffee-shop and face the blizzard. She sipped on her hot chocolate, relishing the rich taste of it, the hot thick liquid barely covered in the delicate whipped cream. She should enjoy it while she could. With the chaos surrounding Sherlock's mission, she would most probably be needed in the office later on and everything there was once again diet and healthy.

She relaxed into the soft, comfortable armchair and held her cup close, curling her long fingers around it.

"You've managed remarkably well in that fight, considering how awful the snow had been," she encouraged and was glad to hear Jane's surprised chuckle.

Jane Watson used to have a blog, Anthea read it, everyone involved with the consulting detective and his friend did, but Anthea knew how it started. Knew it was supposed to be a blog about Jane. About her feelings, how she dealt with her homecoming from Afghanistan, her nightmares. But Jane never was good with talking about her feelings and troubles. Jane Watson loved to talk about her adventures, especially the ones that ended well. And she was a good story teller.

"Weather talk MI6 version?" she commented with a smile and started talking about the attack.

Telling Anthea about the situation she saw and knew all about, but telling her a story which was something completely new.


End file.
